Mrs. Rushmere did not go to bed. She sat up nursing her wrath, and waiting for her husband. The venom of Martha's poisoned arrows was rankling in her breast. She considered herself the injured party now, and no longer dreaded the indignant expression of his displeasure at her conduct to Dorothy. She would begin the battle first, accuse him of infidelity, and bear him down with a torrent of words.
Following out this idea, a terrible scene of mutual recrimination took place between the husband and wife, which ended, as such scenes generally do, in total alienation on his part, and frantic jealousy on her's.
Gilbert Rushmere had endeavoured to make the best of a bad bargain, and though he could not respect the woman who had tricked him into making her his wife, he had treated her with more consideration and kindness than she deserved.
The consciousness of having married her for money, involved a moral sense of degradation, which made him more lenient in his judgment, of the deceit practised against him; for had it not been mutual, he could not blame her without including himself in the same condemnation.
For a long time he listened in silence to her maddening speeches, trusting that the heat of her passion would wear out, that her tongue would grow tired with continual motion, and that, not meeting with any opposition, she would give it up as a useless task, and go to sleep. He was fully aware of her weakness, but not of her obstinate strength of will.
"Sophia," he said, when utterly wearied with her reproaches for imaginary injuries, "after the disgraceful scene this afternoon in the attic, it would be wiser in you to hold your tongue and go to sleep. If you wish me to retain any affection for you, let me never have a repetition of such conduct again."
"I shall not keep silence, sir, because you dare to tell me to hold my tongue. I shall speak when I please, and as I please, without asking your leave."
"Well, don't expect me to listen to such nonsense. My heart is overwhelmed with grief for the death of a dear mother. You surely take a strange time to distress me with your foolish and groundless jealousy."
"And you to show your preference for that vile woman, that hired mistress of your patron, Lord Wilton!"